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A lack of technological foresight and changing economic conditions may bring dramatic consolidation to the auto industry in the next 15 to 20 years. Industry analyst Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley believes that the number of major automakers could go from around 30 today to as few as 6 in that time. However, a catastrophe is avoidable.

General Motors has added two more outlets to its global land-fill free initiative – the Rayong engine plant in Thailand and Cheonga proving ground in Korea. This brings the total to 33 facilities in Asia, 45 in North America and 22 in Europe that recycle, reuse or convert to energy all their waste.

Audi has opened the doors to its new power-to-gas facility, which will make what the automaker calls E-gas, in Werlte, Germany. The plant produces hydrogen and synthetic methane and these clean fuels come from renewable energy, water and carbon dioxide. Audi says it's the first automaker to "develop a chain of sustainable energy carriers."

Stop-start battery systems continue to gain traction with automakers. The United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) has now awarded a $2.28 million stop-start development contract to Leyden Energy Inc. of Fremont, CA. USABC is a consortium group made up of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors – and this award was also funded in part by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

Mary Nichols, chairman of California Air Resources Board, recently took a jab at automaker trade groups for urging the US Environmental Protection Agency to block California's zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandates. They're undermining the progress they've been making in creating the market for electric cars and other ZEVs, she said.

So, what's the reason people get into carsharing? Is it a "romanticized view of access understood as a form of collaborative consumption and altruistically motivated"? Or is it more about practical realities – that car sharing is really about affordability and convenience?

Last September, a report in the Wall Street Journal claimed that the Chinese government intends to force foreign automakers to divulge their plug-in vehicle technology secrets in order to sell their vehicles in China. Apparently, China is looking to become a global power in the plug-in vehicle segment and might achieve that goal by utilizing technology developed by others.

Get this. The vehicles that automakers claimed was impossible years ago are exactly the ones they have featured at the LA Auto Show. Roland Hwang, the transportation program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council's energy program, walked the show this year and helped hand out the Green Car of the Year award to the Chevrolet Volt. As he did so, he was reminded of a time when automakers were adamant that diesels and clean air do not go hand in hand, that powerful vehicles cannot have l

Let's say you're an non-Chinese automaker interested in selling your cars in China. More specifically, say you're looking to sell a groundbreaking electric vehicle there. The cost might be higher than you're willing to pay. A recent report in The Wall Street Journal claims that the Chinese government aims to force foreign automakers to divulge their plug-in vehicle secrets in order to sell them in China. Bullying U.S. automakers around isn't exactly fair and at least two people – Congressi

So you want to sell your foreign cars in China? If you're an automaker, it might cost you a whole lot do so. A report in The Wall Street Journal claims that the Chinese government wants to force foreign companies to divulge their electric vehicle technology secrets in order to sell their products in China.

So you want to sell your foreign cars in China? If you're an automaker, it might cost you a whole lot do so. A report in the Wall Street Journal claims that the Chinese government wants to force foreign companies to divulge their electric vehicle technology secrets in order to sell their products in China.

Nicole Pentis is a high school junior in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan who has been making videos for five years. When C-SPAN sent out a call for students to make a video address to President Obama and tell him what they thought were the most pressing issues facing the U.S., Pentis grabbed her camera. Her subject: the turmoil in her own home – the imploding auto industry.

When Congress wants to hand out money, it apparently wants to include everybody. Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is likely to propose a measure that lets automakers tap into the $700 billion vein of rescue dollars that's ostensibly intended for financial institutions, yet is being hungrily eyed by everyone.

Try as they might, The Onion got the typical stonewall response from GM, Ford, and Toyota when pressing the automakers about their flying car programs. All these companies do is deny, deny, deny. Even when the Onion called them out, pointing to their secret labs where engineers fly around gleefully like Charlie Bucket and his grandfather all hopped up on hotrod soda, flat denial was the order of the day. We can expect these programs to be pushed further underground, now that their cover was near

A few days ago we posted on the price discrepancy between identical vehicles sold in the U.S. and Canada. The discrepancy was always there, but became apparent when the value of the Canadian Loonie reached parity with the U.S. dollar recently. It was then that consumers couldn't ignore the fact that they were paying more for vehicles than their U.S. neighbors, up to 38% in some cases.

You might recall about this time last year, California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed a lawsuit in Northern California's U.S. District Court asserting that automakers selling vehicles in the Golden State were liable for the hundreds of millions of dollars of damages its products cause. That lawsuit, which named GM, Ford, Toyota, DaimlerChrysler, Honda and Nissan as the defendants, was thrown out today by a federal judge.

There are more automakers in the world than the members of the Big 3, Big 6 and Exotic 8. There are cottage automakers, niche builders and boutique brands hiding in the world's every nook and cranny. Forbes recently compiled a list of the Top Ten Auto Brands You've Never Heard Of. Clearly Forbes and Autoblog do not share the same audience of readers, as you should be well aware of more than half the companies on the list if you read this site. There were a few that caught us by surprise, like Au

Most of the numbers for the month of June are in, and as you can see the red arrows outnumber the green ones yet again. Eighteen out of the 39 automakers below are reporting a rise in June sales over the same period last year. The 25.9% drop in sales by General Motors has attracted the most attention so far, but the General's performance, along with FoMoCo falling 6.9% and the Chrysler Group dropping 15%, can largely be attributed to the successful summer sales drive of 2005 that artificially in